Travailler ou ne pas travailler: la motivation professionnelle autre que pécuniaire et ses prédicteurs,une question d'époque

Pour mesurer la motivation professionnelle autre que pécuniaire, on demande généralement aux gens s'ils continueraient à travailler s'ils gagnaient au loto. Les auteurs rappellent les conclusions des études menées sur la base des réponses à cette question dans différents pays dont Israël, tout en recherchant l'influence en la matière des variables démographiques et des différentes dimensions du sens du travail. Ils constatent un net recul de la motivation professionnelle autre que pécuniaire au nouveau millénaire, et une évolution des facteurs en cause. Ils analysent ces résultats et leurs effets potentiels sur le travail et l'emploi au regard de l'évolution économique et sociale en Israël.     

L’astronomie française à la Belle Époque. Professionnalisation d’une activité scientifique

This article describes the way French astronomy developed in the Belle Époque (ca. 1880-1914). It identifies and accounts for the specificities of a scientific practice, which, up until now, has been misrepresented in the history of science. We show how the practice of astronomy was rationalized by rigid procedures and integrated by a scientific-bureaucratic regime of activity. Established in state observatories (for example, the Paris Observatory), this regime defined astronomy as a professional activity practiced by a group of “workers” of the sky. Finally, the analysis of the regime enables us to shed a light on the process by which the cognitive content of the discipline of astronomy, the institutional framework constituted by the state observatories, and the group of professional astronomers all interacted and were indeed co-constructed.     

Le travail n'est pas une marchandise. Contenu et sens du travail au XXIe siècle

Dans sa dernière leçon au Collège de France, Alain Supiot revient sur les travaux qu'il a consacrés aux transformations du travail au XXI^e siècle, en soulignant le rôle du droit et des institutions pour faire face aux conséquences de la révolution numérique et au défi écologique. La faillite morale, sociale et écologique du néolibéralisme doit nous obliger, selon lui, à reconsidérer la fiction juridique du travail marchandise et à établir ce que le préambule de la Constitution de l'OIT nomme «un régime de travail réellement humain», qui fasse place au sens et au contenu du travail. Cette thèse est illustrée par l’étude du cas de la recherche scientifique.     

« Le Premier Cercle » : le Kruzhok de Heidelberg et la nationalisation de la chimie russe

In the 1860s and 1870s, Russian chemistry was rocked by a series of charged nationalist polemics, alleging that German chemists had been engaged in jingoism, bias, and poaching the discoveries of Russian chemists. These salvos from leading members of the Russian Chemical Society (established 1868) formed the core of the Russian contribution to some of the earliest and clearest claims that natural knowledge revealed a national character. This paper traces the origins of these disputes to a specific location: Heidelberg in the late 1850s and early 1860s. After the humiliating defeat of Russian forces by a Western European coalition in the Crimean War (1854-1856), the Russian government resolved to “modernize” its major institutions to enable it to compete more effectively against its former opponents. Alexander II and his ministers decided to export Russian postdocs to leading Western universities (mostly in the German states) hoping that these graduates would be able to erect modern scientific institutions within Russia upon their return. This paper focuses on the chemists among them, most of whom ended up at Heidelberg University (including their most famous representative, D. I. Mendeleev, later renowned for his 1869 formulation of the periodic system of chemical elements). While there, they experienced profound alienation from their German peers, and retreated to their own environments — particularly the Russian urban institution of the kruzhok or “circle.” This kruzhok, formed as a reaction to perceived German xenophobia, was the major social institution upon which the Russians — once back in St. Petersburg — could construct a Russian Chemical Society and the basic institutions of Western scholarship. The supposed venture into Western Europe resulted not in a hegemonic submission to the institutions of German academia, but rather to a revitalization of a Russian cultural form that proved both adaptable to the demands of technical professionalization and became a kernel for a Germanophobic nationalism that would permeate the sciences in the ensuing decades. The paper concludes with an analysis of three different styles of scientific nationalism in chemistry: the representative, concerning the preferential employment of Russians over Germans in state institutions; the linguistic, about the proper national language(s) for science; and the internationalist, whereby Russians defended the cosmopolitan in science to attack perceived German jingoism.     

Ordres socio-économiques et polarisation de la recherche dans l'agriculture : pour une critique des rapports science/société

What if farming were the exemplar of a knowledge-based society? Due to their many, ambivalent effects, research and innovation in agronomy lie at the center of trends now shaping the world of agriculture. To present this history, the types of pairing are examined between, on the one hand, processes for producing scientific knowledge and techniques and, on the other, contingent forms for organizing collective action. For this purpose, the notion of a “socioeconomic order” is introduced to account for the multiplication of collective spaces of action based on specific systems of norms and cooperation. Studying these pairings brings to light three “models of polarization of research” in France (the Colbertist model, academic polarization, and fragmented polarization), which have changed over the past fifty years. Accordingly, agriculture's recent history is interpreted as the joint transformation of socioeconomic orders and these modes of polarization. - Special issue on Agriculture and food.     

Pour de nouveaux indicateurs des droits au travail: méthode de construction et tendances 2000–2015

Les auteurs proposent une nouvelle méthode pour mesurer l'état de la liberté syndicale et de la négociation collective, qui repose sur un codage des atteintes repérées dans neuf sources documentaires, dont six rapports du BIT et des textes du droit national. Leurs indicateurs, disponibles pour 185 États Membres de l'OIT, ont été publiés en 2015 par le Center for Global Workers’ Rights de l'Université Penn State, en association avec l'Université ouvrière mondiale. Dans une résolution d'octobre 2018, la Conférence internationale des statisticiens du travail recommande l'adoption de cette méthode pour mesurer l'indicateur sur les droits des travailleurs (8.8.2) associé aux objectifs de développement durable.     

À la recherche d’une politique biomédicale en France : chronique d’une réforme inaboutie en cancérologie

This article proposes to explore research administration practices in the analysis of the spread of biomedicine in France. This approach, combined with an analytical positioning inspired by the sociology of organisations, brings an additional element to conventional approaches to biomedicine, since it helps to identify constraints other than those associated with the scientific and clinical practices themselves. Drawing on empirical observation of the development of contemporary policy on cancer research, we will show the crucial influence of the distribution of power between the different stakeholders involved in developing public processes for promoting biomedical practices.     

La science en projets : financements sur projet, autonomie professionnelle et transformations du travail des chercheurs académiques

Drawing on the literature on changes in professional work settings, this article explores the transformations of academic research in the field of electronic engineering and micro/nanotechnology. It examines how changes in funding regimes (i.e. the development of project funding) have reconfigured the “conditions of possibility” for professional autonomy, the contents of academic work and the organization of research groups.